The Motion Picture Association (MPA) has been a key player in the anti-piracy fight for decades, a position that has only strengthened in recent years.
As the driving force behind the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, the MPA finds itself at the center of an international enforcement apparatus.
For example, MPA and ACE helped to shut down a popular ring of sports piracy sites last month, which reportedly received over 1.4 billion annual visits. Another high-profile case includes the takedown of domains associated with the IPTV service MagisTV/Flujo TV, and yesterday, ACE announced that it helped the Thai authorities to shut down IPTV service INWIPTV.
While these actions impacted the availability of these piracy sites and services, Hollywood’s piracy problem hasn’t disappeared.
MPA Flags Piracy Challenges
A few hours ago, MPA shared its latest submission in response to the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) annual review of notorious piracy markets. The group mentions these and other achievements in its “tireless fight” against piracy, before outlining the key threats that remain.
The movie industry group, which counts the major Hollywood studios, Amazon, and Netflix among its members, notes that its list is not exhaustive. Instead, it aims to provide an illustration of current challenges.
A notable change compared to previous years is the mention of so-called “hydra sites”. The hydra concept, derived from Greek mythology, was popularized in piracy circles in the late 2000s by The Pirate Bay. Today, the MPA uses it to describe a fast-growing piracy trend.
Hydra Sites
According to the MPA, “hydra sites” are one-stop-shop piracy platforms offering free movies and TV series without any restrictions.
“These are a rapidly expanding category of one-stop piracy sites offering content somewhat comparable to IPTV services, but without the need for subscriptions or dedicated devices. These sites offer frictionless, browser-based access that requires no registration and does not include paywalls.”
Examples of these hydra sites include HydraHD, Nunflix, Cineby, Rivestream, Watchug, Vidbox, Broflix, Flickystream, Mapple, Alienflix, and Novastream.
The group doesn’t elaborate on its use of the term ‘hydra’ but it’s likely these platforms use standard templates, access centralized pirate video libraries, and are easy to replace.
In other words, these sites rely on Piracy-as-a-Service (PaaS) platforms, a term previously coined by the MPA. These are third-party services and tools that allow people to start their own pirate site with minimal effort.
The MPA’s submission does indeed tie these categories together, noting that movie hydra sites often depend on a video library such as “Vidsrc,” while many sports streaming sites use “Streamed.su” to serve their content.
“Most hydra sites depend heavily on PaaS infrastructure, often embedding ‘Vidsrc’ for VOD and/or ‘Streamed’ for live (sports) content,” MPA’s submission reads.
The Usual Suspects
Aside from hydra sites, the MPA lists dozens of other targets. These include linking, streaming, and download sites, as well as torrent indexes such as The Pirate Bay and 1337x.
At this point, torrent sites are relatively small targets, as streaming portals are much more popular. The MPA notes that the Myflixerz/Sflix ring is one of the priority threats, with an estimated 622 million visits in August.
Sflix was one of the brands targeted in the Fmovies crackdown in 2024, but the popular piracy brand hasn’t gone away.
“These sites rely on their own PaaS infrastructure (formerly known as 2embed[.]to, which ACE took down in June 2023) and despite enforcement, they continue to thrive through alternative domains and backend hosting on platforms such as MegaCloud, VidCloud, and RapidCloud,” MPA writes.
Other priority targets include Cuevana and MagisTV, which have been targeted repeatedly in enforcement actions. Despite these efforts, the brands remain popular with many millions of active users.
Continued Pressure on Intermediaries
In addition to pirate sites and services, the MPA’s submission highlights third-party intermediaries, including hosting providers and domain name registries. These are not the source of any piracy activity but play a crucial role in keeping services afloat, the anti-piracy group argues.
For example, MPA writes that the .CC, .IO, .TV, .RU, SU, .SX, and .TO domain registries continue to provide their services to pirate sites despite repeated notification and outreach.
“A registry—directly or via its contractual relationship with its registrars—can withdraw or disable domain names used by websites engaged in massive copyright infringement,” MPA clarifies.
In the hosting category, DDos-Guard, Private Layer, Squitter, Veesp, and Virtual Systems are mentioned. The Belize company Crypto Servers is added as a newcomer this year, with MPA mentioning that it caters to sites that seek anonymity and takedown resistance.
As in previous years, the MPA also mentions Cloudflare. While the American company does not qualify as a foreign piracy market, the industry group repeatedly highlights that pirate sites use its services to conceal their location.
Cloudflare previously responded to this critique, pointing out that it actively works with trusted flaggers, including the MPA, to share the hosting locations of alleged pirate sites.
All in all, MPA’s submission paints a detailed picture of the video piracy landscape. The USTR will review these and other stakeholder comments in the coming months and is expected to release a new version of its “notorious markets” overview early next year.
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A list of all sites and services highlighted and categorized in the MPA’s 2025 notorious markets submission (pdf) can be found below. For additional context, we highlight the new entries, while also indicating those from the 2023 report that have since been removed.
Linking and Streaming Websites
Priority sites
– Myflixerz / Sflix
– Cuevana.biz/is
– Hianime.to, hianime.nz, etc
Additional sites
– 1tamilmv (new)
– Animeflv.net
– Anime-Sama (new)
– Cda.pl
– Chomikuj.pl (new)
– Cineby.app
– Bs.to
– Buffstreams.io
– Diziwatch.net
– Dramasq.com
– Dytt8899.com, dytt8.net, dytt89.com, etc.
– Gimy.ai
– Goojara.to/levidia.ch/Suprnova.to
– Hydrahd.sh (new)
– Indoxxi Network
– Kisskh.co, kisskh.ovh (new)
– Librefutboltv.su
– LiveTV.sx (new)
– Netmirror (new)
– Nunflix.org (new)
– Redecanais / Redecanaistv / Futemax (new)
– Rezka.ag
– S.to
– Soap2day.day (new)
– Streamingcommunity
– Vegamovies
– Veronline[.]in
– Xalaflix.gg / xalaflix.art
– Soaper.tv
– Solarmovie.to
– Tamilblasters / Streamblasters
– TV**.wiki (e.g., tv51.wiki)
Piracy-as-a-Service (PaaS)
– MegaCloud / VidCloud / RapidCloud (formerly 2embed.to) (new)
– Rewall.in
– Fire Video Player
– HDVB
– Njalla
– Streamed.su (new)
– Videasy[.]net (new)
– Vidlink[.]pro (new)
– Vidsrc[.]me (new iteration)
– WHMCS Smarters
Direct Download Cyberlockers and Streaming Video Hosting Services
Priority sites
– DoodStream
– Telegram
– Mixdrop.co
– Streamtape.com
– Voe.sx (new)
Additional sites
– HQQ/WaaW/Netu
– Baidu Wangpan
– Rapidgator
– VK.com
Illegal IPTV Services
Priority services
– MagisTV / FlujoTV
– Gogo IPTV
Additional services
– Apollo Group TV
– Atlas Pro (new)
– Crystal OTT
– GenIPTV
– BestBuyIPTV.biz
– Spider Receiver
– TheKing365tv.site
– TVExpress
Piracy Devices and Apps
– EVPAD
– LokLok, RookTV, LokTV, LokiOK
– Movie Box
– PikaShow
– Shabakaty
– SVI Cloud
– TVMob
– Unblock Tech (unblocktech.com & ub1818.com)
Peer-to-Peer Networks & BitTorrent Portals
– 1337x.to
– DonTorrent.com
– Rutracker.org
– ThePirateBay.org
– Yggtorrent
– Yts.mx
– Zamunda.net
Hosting Providers
– Crypto Servers Ltd (new)
– Ddos-Guard.net
– Private Layer, Swiss Global, and affiliated companies
– Mnogobyte
– Squitter, ABC Consultancy, Peenq, ESTOXY, BestDC, SERDECH
– Veesp
– Virtual Systems, V-Sys
Registries
– .IO Registry
– .CC Registry
– .RU Registry
– .TO Registry
– .TV Registry
– .SU Registry (new)
– .SX Registry (new)
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
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